A commoner sent to marry an enemy crown prince under a dead princess's name discovers that her husband has stolen a dead prince's place as well. The two impostors become unwilling accomplices, and every intimate performance risks becoming real.
I married the crown prince of an enemy kingdom in the place of a princess who had died three days earlier.
Princess Seraphine died of a fever just before the political marriage meant to end a thirty-year war. I was an apothecary's daughter dragged into the palace because I looked like her. The chancellor took my little brother hostage and forced me to memorize the princess's manner of speaking and every story from her childhood the court might expect me to know.
If anyone discovered the truth, my brother and I would die, and the truce sealed by a royal marriage would collapse.
On our wedding night, my husband did not even lift my veil.
One candle burned in the bedchamber, and the fire crackled in the hearth. I folded my hands as I had been taught and kept the royal accent in my voice.
Crown Prince Rian sat across from me, watching as though he were waiting for my lie to split apart.
"What bloomed in the princess's winter garden?"
"White camellias."
I had memorized the answer.
Without thinking, I adjusted my veil with my right hand. His gaze followed the movement to the index finger I had cut on an apothecary's knife. The crown prince approached slowly. Beneath his gold-embroidered formal coat, his body was hard with muscle, and the sword callus on his right hand was unmistakable.
"Strange. The real Princess Seraphine was left-handed."
My pulse lurched.
He turned toward the door.
"I've noticed something strange, too."
He stopped.
"The real Crown Prince Rian fought left-handed, didn't he? But Your Highness's sword callus is on the right."
At last, he looked back. For the first time, a genuine smile touched his flawless face.
Instead of calling the guards, he locked the door.
"How much do you know?"
"If you summon the guards, my identity will be exposed and the truce will collapse. If I expose you, the succession falls apart. Either way, war begins again."
He came toward me again, slowly.
"Is that why you didn't call the guards?" I asked.
"No. Because you are the first person in three years to look at me and see someone other than Rian."
His fingers lifted my veil at last. His gray eyes held both wariness and a strange relief.
"Neither of us is who everyone believes us to be."
Then, as though shedding the crown prince's mask for the first time, he asked in a low voice,
"Will you give me your real name first, or shall we begin with the terms for keeping each other alive?"